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The government ate my name

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Re: The government ate my name

#21

Post by reorder9695 »

ninalanyon wrote: post #3
c0balt wrote: post #2

Interesting article, I've had some similar (though significantly less severe) experiences with having ä and ß in my names, it seems many U. S. companies are just unwilling/incapable of going beyond ASCII. The government being this sloppy at getting accents right is surprising, I would expect them to value accuracy and a clean paper trail when handling names. http://archive.today/5h4v2

> The government being this sloppy at getting accents right is surprising, I would expect them to value accuracy That tells me you're German, I didn't even need to see the ä and ß. Even in the UK I encounter websites that won't accept my Norwegian address because it begins with Å. English speaking countries generally are pretty bad at this sort of thing.

You'd think the UK would be alright with it given Irish names are and were reasonably common (at least in parts of the UK), which commonly have fadas in them (i.e. Béibhinn, Seán, Ciarán, etc)

Re: The government ate my name

#22

Post by criddell »

comrade1234 wrote: post #4
c0balt wrote: post #2

Interesting article, I've had some similar (though significantly less severe) experiences with having ä and ß in my names, it seems many U. S. companies are just unwilling/incapable of going beyond ASCII. The government being this sloppy at getting accents right is surprising, I would expect them to value accuracy and a clean paper trail when handling names. http://archive.today/5h4v2

The USA government can't even handle ü. I was filling out a simple form to replace my damaged passport. I live in Zürich but it couldn't handle the umlaut. I never know what to do in this situation - do I use 'ue' instead, which is most common in Europe, or do I just use 'u' which is wrong but usually works in America. I didn't even bother checking with 'ue' and just went with 'u' Ü isn't even a special character or…

'u' isn't wrong in America. We spell it Zurich. And in China, it's 苏黎世 (or at least that's what Google tells me).

Re: The government ate my name

#23

Post by pavel_lishin »

xg15 wrote: post #20
pavel_lishin wrote: post #7

There's an analogous problem for Russians, and presumably folks from other Slavic-language countries. Our last names are gendered; if Ivan Kuznetsov marries Elena, her last name becomes Kuznetsova. (And their children would have gendered last names, too - little Borya Kuznetsov and little Masha Kuznetsova.) So Russian families who move to America have a choice - either deal with people and systems who assume that mar…

This sounds as if it could slowly erode the whole "gendered surname" concept even in the origin countries (e.g. Russia) If you can treat the gendered name simply as a grammatical construct, things are easy - and a "name" like "Elena Kuznetsov" would simply be a grammatical error and never occur as a real name. However, now people from abroad visit the country or possibly even (re-)immigrate and suddenly you do have r…

Yep. One thing I forgot to mention is that kids born to Americans here typically inherit the father's last name - so an Elena Kuznetsov is a very real possibility.

In fact, that's one way to guess/cold-read some information about a person. If you meet an Elena Kuznetsov in America, odds are pretty decent that she was born to Russian parents here.

Re: The government ate my name

#24

Post by jrockway »

I wonder what would happen if the author were to legally change his name from what's on his birth certificate (4 names) to his passport (3 names). Then when the documents don't match, you have a name change order that explains why. The explanation in this case is wrong, but it does give you a piece of legal paperwork accounting for the discrepancy that should satisfy most bureaucrats.

Of course, it's not fun to give up your identity and nobody should have to do that, but it might make it easier to exist in the American "you must have 3 names" world.

Re: The government ate my name

#25

Post by cidd »

In Indonesia, many Javanese people traditionally have only one name. When they migrate to countries like Singapore, where a surname is required, they often use their given name as both their first and last name. As a result, you may see names such as Chandra Chandra or Supardi Supardi.

Re: The government ate my name

#26

Post by pavel_lishin »

nradov wrote: post #18
pavel_lishin wrote: post #7

There's an analogous problem for Russians, and presumably folks from other Slavic-language countries. Our last names are gendered; if Ivan Kuznetsov marries Elena, her last name becomes Kuznetsova. (And their children would have gendered last names, too - little Borya Kuznetsov and little Masha Kuznetsova.) So Russian families who move to America have a choice - either deal with people and systems who assume that mar…

As a related issue, some Slavic language countries require foreign documents to be transliterated into the Cyrillic alphabet, which doesn't contain exact equivalents for certain English alphabet letters. They usually end up using the closest phonetic equivalent but this often causes bureaucratic hassles.

Now I'm trying to figure out how one would write out Matthew in Cyrillic, which has two phonemes that are as much of a nightmare for Russian-speakers as "ы" and "р" are for English-speakers. "Мэтью", maybe?

Re: The government ate my name

#27

Post by watwut »

xg15 wrote: post #20
pavel_lishin wrote: post #7

There's an analogous problem for Russians, and presumably folks from other Slavic-language countries. Our last names are gendered; if Ivan Kuznetsov marries Elena, her last name becomes Kuznetsova. (And their children would have gendered last names, too - little Borya Kuznetsov and little Masha Kuznetsova.) So Russian families who move to America have a choice - either deal with people and systems who assume that mar…

This sounds as if it could slowly erode the whole "gendered surname" concept even in the origin countries (e.g. Russia) If you can treat the gendered name simply as a grammatical construct, things are easy - and a "name" like "Elena Kuznetsov" would simply be a grammatical error and never occur as a real name. However, now people from abroad visit the country or possibly even (re-)immigrate and suddenly you do have r…

Gendered name is grammatical construct, literally. But the strong "Elena Kuznetsov" cant exist rules are bad idea, because a.) foreigners exist b.) minorities exists c.) people with strong opinions over how they want to be named exist.

They can exist, but sound weird in the language.

Re: The government ate my name

#28

Post by db48x »

comrade1234 wrote: post #16
immibis wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ü is not part of ascii. Are you thinking of latin-1?

Oh that makes sense. ASCII is 7-bit. so they could be depending on old 7-bit databases.

No, they can only use what shows up on the keyboard. Internally the software is a vast mix of systems that in practice can probably handle unicode just fine by now. It's just that the people can't type any of those characters.

Re: The government ate my name

#29

Post by Muromec »

xg15 wrote: post #20
pavel_lishin wrote: post #7

There's an analogous problem for Russians, and presumably folks from other Slavic-language countries. Our last names are gendered; if Ivan Kuznetsov marries Elena, her last name becomes Kuznetsova. (And their children would have gendered last names, too - little Borya Kuznetsov and little Masha Kuznetsova.) So Russian families who move to America have a choice - either deal with people and systems who assume that mar…

This sounds as if it could slowly erode the whole "gendered surname" concept even in the origin countries (e.g. Russia) If you can treat the gendered name simply as a grammatical construct, things are easy - and a "name" like "Elena Kuznetsov" would simply be a grammatical error and never occur as a real name. However, now people from abroad visit the country or possibly even (re-)immigrate and suddenly you do have r…

It will not of course.

Re: The government ate my name

#30

Post by klipt »

Interesting that he went from Giovanni to Joe. Giovanni is more directly cognate to John (both derive from Hebrew/Aramaic Yohanan via Greek Ioannes) while Joe is usually short for Joseph (Giuseppe in Italian, also from Hebrew).
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